Data brokers and at least one lifestyle data owner said the move would be catastrophic for direct marketers. "It's a huge concern," said Lynn Stevens, managing director of Lloyd James Group. "We don't rent ER data per se but the lifestyle companies we buy from do. And we use ER matching for cleaning and underpinning a lot of models might use."
DMA chairman Rosemary Smith said direct marketers should be aware that the Report's ER recommendation was not government policy. "We will make representations to the Commissioner on this but people should remember that he has said publicly he is not in favour of moving to opt-in and is happy with opt out."
The review was carried out by the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas and Dr Mark Walport, the director of the Wellcome Trust and was ordered after a series of high profile breaches of the Data Protection Act. It calls for councils to be banned from selling the edited Electoral Roll (ER) to direct marketers.
Smith added that is was possible this ER proposal might gain momentum. "It's our job to stop that. We need to demonstrate good practice and the DMA has a whole cannon of best practice guidelines that our members stick to."
One lifestyle data supplier, Acxiom, said legislation was a risk that data suppliers had to live with. Acxiom Europe's Dave Allen, said providers should be bracing themselves for legislation that affected data sources. "You need to be prepared for something like this to happen," Allen
said. "The growing sense of consumer privacy and advocacy is a risk to our business and we¹re always planning scenarios around that."
He said Acxiom was "planning scenarios" in the event of a ban on use of the ER. "Our clients' job is to acquire customers and they might not have the same tools as before. It's incumbent on companies like Acxiom to find a solution that".
Robert Keitch, the DMA's director of media channel development, said legislative threats were "omnipresent" in direct marketing. "I'm surprised at anyone saying this has come as a shock. It's a classic example of ill thought-out legislation that could envelop us."
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